Barbara was born the youngest in a family of four children in Miami, Florida. Growing up with minimal resources and an alcoholic father, she quickly developed a strong sense of independence and self-reliance. Her early life was marked with drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, welfare and myriad other struggles.
She moved out of her parent’s home at the age of sixteen, was married and gave birth to her son, Matthew when she was 21. At 24, Barbara moved to Oregon with her son, seeking to start a new life.
One of her first encounters was with a small Religious Science Church in Eugene, Oregon. At that point, her life had reached an all-time low. She was 3,000 miles from anyone she knew; she had a three-year-old son with no money, no job and no place to live. Days before, she had been in a car accident in which one person died and the other, the woman with whom she was staying, decided to return immediately to Florida.
Still as she listened to her new Science of Mind minister, she quickly learned that there were answers to all her problems and that all those answers were inside of her. She enrolled in classes where she learned that by changing her perceptions of herself and the world around her, she could change her life for the better. As soon as she heard this, she was ready to embrace a new vision of a life that could be more fulfilling than anything she had ever imagined. Quickly, her life began to change. In 1980, she returned to South Florida where she joined the Ft. Lauderdale Church of Religious Science and soon after was hired as a member of the church’s administrative staff. She continued her course work in Science of Mind and in 1983, completed my ministerial studies where she excelled at public speaking. She soon joined the staff of the Miami Church of Religious Science. There with her new husband, Rev. Tony Bonaccorso, she worked to build a ministry from an average Sunday attendance of thirty to over 300 in a three-year period.
She served the Miami Church for five years during which the community thrived and prospered. During much of this same time, Tony and Barbara produced television and radio programming on WLRN, WKAT and WTMI under the name “The Truth About You.” Much of this success in Miami is attributed to her work in local media.
In 1988, she left the Miami Church and her second marriage. She was also ordained into ministry by the Rev. Terry Cole Whittaker that same year. After two years of speaking engagements and private counseling, with her new husband, John Waterhouse, they moved to Asheville, North Carolina.
In 1992, she enrolled at the University of North Carolina and quickly became an academic honor student, maintaining a 4.0 GPA throughout my college studies. Still the call to return to ministry became irresistible and on January 15, 1995, John and Barbara held the first Sunday Celebration of a new spiritual community in their rural North Carolina home.
In North Carolina the Waterhouse’s built and co-ministered at the Center for Spiritual Living, a Science of Mind spiritual community. Through their work at the Center for Spiritual Living, untold numbers of people have connected with their own inner beauty and personal power. The community thrives to this day.
Barbara made her transition in April of 2023.
This website is dedicated to her mission and passions. Through this work she continues to touch the lives of those seeking better.
